Blinken confirms US is still pausing a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel as Netanyahu increases pressure on admin
CNN
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday confirmed an ongoing pause on a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to ratchet up public pressure on the Biden administration over “withholding weapons.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday confirmed an ongoing pause on a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to ratchet up public pressure on the Biden administration over “withholding weapons.” The Biden administration is “continuing to review one shipment that President Biden has talked about with regard to 2,000-pound bombs because of our concerns about their use in a densely populated area like Rafah. That remains under review,” Blinken said at a news conference at the US State Department. The administration is committed, however, to making sure that “that Israel has what it needs to effectively defend itself,” Blinken said. The pause in the shipment of the heavy bombs was made public in early May, months into the war between Israel and Hamas as the administration faced heavy domestic scrutiny over its provision of weapons to the Israeli military. It served as a signal of the kind of action President Joe Biden said he was prepared to take if Israel moved forward with a major military operation in Rafah, the southern Gazan city where more than a million people had fled. The announcement of the hold on the weapons shipment was met with mixed reactions, including strong condemnation from Israeli officials and some US lawmakers of both parties. In video remarks Tuesday, Netanyahu – who will address the US Congress next month – seemed to try to revive public pressure around the pause, claiming that he told Blinken in their meeting in Israel last week that “it’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel.” “Secretary Blinken assured me that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks,” he said in the brief video posted on X.
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